Piano 103

Piano 103 was captured in the church of St. George the Martyr in Borough. A Yamaha grand on a new-to-me stand from Sunex.

A bit of effort, and I get to reference 2, engineering people rather than piano people. And I can't find this particular product, although they are clearly into jacks and lifting.

Google Images' AI assistant offers: 'The image shows a Sunex 4406 6-ton bottle jack attached to a wheel assembly. Bottle jacks like this one use hydraulic force to lift heavy objects and are often used for automotive and industrial applications. The jack in the image features a two-piece handle for controlling the release valve and pumping the jack. It also has a pivoting base and a hydraulic bypass system to prevent over-extension. While bottle jacks are compact and easy to store, they can be unstable on uneven surfaces'. 

Which seems to be about right. So someone has knocked up a piano moving assembly around bottle jacks. Would Steinway's have allowed such a fudge with one of their pianos?

Zoomed, I notice that the lacquer on the piano is a bit tired. Top right in the image above. Maybe the piano has been carelessly stored at some point.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/04/piano-102.html.

Reference 2: https://sunextools.com/.

Group search key: pianosk.

OneDrive problems: Report No.3

A couple of weeks back, I reported at reference 1 on my problems with Microsoft's OneDrive product. Problems which involved loss of a few days work from some Excel Workbooks and a rather smaller number of Word documents. I dare say there has been minor damage which I have not noticed.

I have not made any progress with versions not working.

I decided to keep some work on OneDrive and move some off, this last while things settled down. I had not had any more OneDrive problems.

However, I suspected that my old HP Pavilion desktop, dating from 2017 and stuck on Windows 10, was implicated. A complication which OneDrive could not, for some reason, always cope with.

This has now been addressed with a small, new-to-me desktop from Tier1, the people at reference 2, people from whom I have made a modest number of purchases in the past, only one of which - an HP Zbook - did not age well. An HP ProDesk 400 G4 DM i5-8500T topped up with some extra SSD - which is what seems to serve as what I used to know as disc storage. The idea was that I would plug it into my existing display and my existing printer, both from HP, both quite old now. But I did buy new wireless keyboard and mouse, just in case.

Got it out of its box to find that it connected to the display with something called Display Port - while my old but entirely serviceable screen was HDMI. The one in the roof used rows of pins! Luckily, Amazon were, for £15 or so, able to deliver a suitable convertor cable the next day, that is to say today.

At which point, having backed up some of the stuff on OneDrive, I plugged it all in and powered it all up. An hour or so later, and it all seemed to be working, including both old display and old printer. Including both old keyboard and old mouse, also both from HP, unlike the Tier1 replacements. Including Windows 11 and Microsoft 365. All much easier than it used to be in the olden days, say twenty years ago.

Only two flies in the ointment so far. First, some odd behaviour of the Screenshots folder on OneDrive. Hopefully not the tip of some unpleasant iceberg - but, just in case, I shall keep the offline chunk of my work offline for the time being, tiresome though that is.

Second, doubt about what version of Microsoft 365, for which I pay a subscription, the new desktop has access to. Is it the free online version, maybe not as good as the downloaded version? Something to be checked out over the next few days.

And while I still have the old desktop, I have not bothered to lift the picture archive from it. An archive which I only rarely use and which, I dare say, could still be recovered were it to become important for some reason. And then there is the late, lamented BT Cloud.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/04/onedrive-problems-report-no2.html.

Reference 2: https://tier1online.com/.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort.

Trolleys 820 and 821

Trolley 820 was captured yesterday morning, before it got hot, on Station Approach. Returned to the M&S food hall in the usual way, to a stack half full with trolleys of the same, popular size.

Followed up with a similar B&M trolley from the Kokoro passage. I left the trolley just visible right, behind the railing, for someone else.

Returned to the trolley stack in front of the tills at the front of the store - mostly taken up with trolleys - the sort of tall trolleys used for deliveries - full of bedding plants. All a bit cramped and crowded.

From there to the surgery to discuss weeding out Isle of Wight holiday addresses from my health record, which last now seems to be scattered across half a dozen south London hospitals. Inconclusive.

From there around the Screwfix circuit, which gave me an opportunity to inspect the whitebeam, now cleared of ivy at ground level. Coming into flower from the top down. While the interior ivy, now sheltered from the drying sun, has not yet realised that it has lost its mains water supply.

A non-scoring trolley from the head of the stream running down Longmead Road. Easy enough to recover by the look of it, but maybe tomorrow. Or perhaps mañana after that. In any event, time to crack out the grappling iron?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/04/trolleys-818-and-819.html.

Group search key: trolleysk.

Busy

Mysteriously, the whitebeam I have been keeping an eye on lately, is being strangled by ivy. I have been thinking of doing something about it, but held back, at least in part, by not wanting to busy myself with someone else's affairs. Maybe the tree man from the council was into providing good habitat for various obscure insects?

Be that as it may, the other day I got around to it, cracking out my trolley to wheel around the modest gardening gear needed, principally the long handle Wilkinson pruner. The people who used to make swords.

Screwfix side at the top, the other side above.

Half an hour later. The thickest stems of ivy were maybe a centimetre thick. Good job I took a big screwdriver to lift them off the trunk for snipping. Rubbish removed to our own compost heap. We shall see how long it takes the rest of the ivy to realise that it has lost its mains water supply.

I dare say it will grow back, as there seems to be plenty of it in the grass round about. But that will be easy enough to deal with in due course, should need arise.

Most of the small number of passers-by looked the other way, but a couple of ladies commented positively, suggesting that I might like to come and attend to their gardens later.

On the way home. Not green alkanet, but is it borage, plain and simple? Google Images says rough or prickly comfrey, Symphytum asperum, as at reference 2. Not completely convinced but, judging by reference 3, it looks as if I got into much the same muddle about this time last year.

Back home, prior to hose action. Our micro ponds were very low for this time of year and were badly infested with duckweed. The first matter has been attended to and I have pulled out quite a lot of duckweed and dead leaves. All of which earned us a visit by the fox that very same evening.

A garden action day.

PS 1: slightly alarmed this afternoon to discover that I have lost two or three inches in height over the past few years. It seems that this is reasonably normal for someone of my age, but I can't say that I am best pleased to have found this out!

[The developers of Neom in Saudi Arabia call it the world’s biggest construction site © Neom]

PS 2: and I was reminded of the Neom mega-project in Saudi Arabia by the piece at reference 4, described more fully at references 5 and 6. Something vaguely indecent to my mind about this project. Is the huge amount of money being sucked into it a decent use of resources in a troubled world - particularly the Saudi part of the world? It includes snow and skiing in the mountains - with this being one of the hottest places on the globe at sea level, not to mention the near absence of fresh water - and a linear city measuring some 170km long, 500m high and 200m wide. To be home to some 9m people. With some 20,000 aboriginals being evicted to make the necessary room. Including many Howeitat, a tribe which has an honourable place in 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom'.

PS 3: the highest mountain in Saudi Arabia is at the other end, towards the southern end of the western coast. Called Jabal Soudah, getting on for 10,000 feet high and still pretty warm in the summer, according to reference 7. Big tourist destination. Very roughly speaking, the high ground in Saudi Arabia is to the west, with the peninsular sloping down from the west to the much flatter and low lying east. Mostly very sparsely populated until recently.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/04/trolley-814.html.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphytum_asperum.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/04/more-comfrey.html.

Reference 4: Neom’s acting chief reviews Saudi mega-project after setbacks: Aiman al-Mudaifer was appointed last year following increasing scrutiny of futuristic plan - Andrew England, Ahmed Al Omran, Financial Times - 2025.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neom.

Reference 6: https://www.neom.com/en-us.

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabal_Soudah.

Trolleys 818 and 819

Trolley 818 was captured in among the bushes to the side of the Kokoro passage and returned to the M&S food hall.

While trolley 819, from B&M was captured in the passage proper. However, it was missing a front wheel - the first time I remember such a thing happening - and the child seat appeared to have been bent out of shape. So while it was easy enough to push along empty, it was not really fit for service, and it seemed best to return it to the back door, noticed at reference 2.

On the way, helping an old lady across the lights outside the entrance to the station. She had a stick and could get along, but for some reason had lost the confidence to cross the road by herself. I remember something of the sort had happened to me after I had left hospital a week or so after major surgery. It took a few weeks to put the brain back together again. Which I imagine would be much more difficult if one lived alone.

Missing wheel visible (as it were) bottom right.

On the way back into town, I discovered these steps leading down from the car deck to Station Way, the proper name of the passage leading from the Rio Grill on the High Street up to Station Approach. Odd that I had passed them many a time, but without actually computing what they did. At least now I know.

And so proceeded on my way around my circuit, on this occasion taking in both Middle Lane and the Screwfix tunnel.

On the way, I came across the plant snapped above in East Street. Google Images thought marrow, which I thought very improbable, certainly not much like any marrow that I have ever grown. When I qualified the search with 'epsom uk not(marrow)', its AI assistant stuck to its guns with: 'The image shows a plant identified as Cucurbita pepo, which encompasses various types such as zucchini, pumpkins, and some gourds. Given the location context of Epsom, UK, and the exclusion of "marrow" in the query, it is likely that this plant is either a zucchini or a pumpkin plant, though it's difficult to definitively identify the specific type without seeing the fruit. These plants are commonly grown in the UK, and their large leaves and sprawling growth habit are characteristic features'. Still not at all convinced, as I think that all these plants sprawl on the ground rather than grow upright in the way of this one, but I suppose I shall have to wait for flowers - if it survives that long. Odd that the AI assistant talks of sprawling growth in connection with this image. Or maybe simple error.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/04/trolley-816-and-817.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/04/trolley-810.html.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucurbita_pepo.

Group search key: trolleysk.

Bright lights: Day one

As it turned out, our Easter kicked off with a short break in London, a short break which involved a short stay in the Premier Inn Hub in Tothill Street, right opposite the Caxton House where I worked in the late 1970s.

Permier Inn Hub being new for us, offering a small but decent room in the middle of London at what seemed to us to be a very reasonable rate. The size of the room was mitigated by a restaurant-lounge area on the ground floor, which seemed to be open for long hours and which offered a decent buffet-style breakfast in the morning. They also offered early check-in, which was convenient for us.

The first item on our agenda was 'The Score' at the Theatre Royal in the Haymarket, recommended by a correspondent. Brian Cox in the chair, as it were, not someone of whom I had previously heard, but he has a good long CV. And I had heard of Trevor Nunn, the director.

A bright, warm day and we were out of the house not long after 10:00, quite early for us. Met a sprightly older gentleman on Clay Hill Green, something over ninety, once a stockbroker, once a Wimbledonian and still making the odd trip into town. He seemed to know about the 'Deep Blue Sea' coming back to the Theatre Royal next month. All most impressive.

Arrived at Westminster on the Jubilee Line, something I think we have done before, but I was very impressed by the size of the cavern.

And what was I seeing at the back of the first snap? Bedrock, spray on concrete or what? My only information is that the brown London clay is quite deep, having drilled test holes in the stuff near Paddington, back in the 1960s.

A zoomed version.

Turning to my handy map of South London geology, which reaches almost to Charing Cross, I get the snap above. LC, London clay formation. LMB, Lambeth group. Blue for the Thanet sand formation. And green for the chalk underneath, starting maybe 60m down. Which is about how far down Copilot thinks that the Jubilee Line is to be found. So not much further ahead - but my bet is on spray concrete, to stabilise whatever it is underneath.

Lots of tourists and barriers above: seems a long time since I used to work there. Plus queues to be photographed in selected telephone boxes. I was pleased to see that Lime Bicycles seem to have cleaned up there act a bit, with their hire bikes being concentrated in sensible places rather than littering the pavements haphazardly. Perhaps someone told them that if they did not clean up their act, they might find themselves banned.

We took a break at the Central Hall, a place we use from time to time, offering, inter alia, interesting and rather different food, in pleasantly uncrowded surroundings. On this occasion, rather good beef sandwiches. Tea not so good, being made with the sort of tea bags which knock out the tannin very quickly. At least I think that that is what the problem is.

A place which rather reminds us of the Salvation Army canteen at the north end of the wobbling bridge which leads you up to St. Paul's. Better grub though.

A place operated by people called Green & Fortune of reference 2. People who live in the once very seedy now fully gentrified York Way, next to Kings Cross station. 

We were a little sorry to learn that the operation is about to be moved up from the basement to the ground floor, presumably to make it more accessible to the many tourists passing by. We suspect that this will mean a loss of amenity as far as we are concerned, but we can also see that they need the business. Central Hall is a very big, and presumably very expensive, building.

Thus fortified, we were checked into the hub by a very cheerful young lady. No need for DIY as I had expected - and I had even armed my telephone with a QR code for the purpose. Up in the lift to the 6th floor to find that our room was indeed small, but it did have a window (we had gathered that quite a few of the rooms did not) and that it had been very cleverly designed. Fine for a short stay, or even a longer one provided you did not plan to take too many of your waking hours in it. Complete with a wall mounted bottle opener, in case of need.

The black band above the bed included a touch screen to work the lights and the heating - which took us a little while to get the hang of. While the whole thing looked pretty much brand new and my only worry was that it might not wear too well. 

I imagine that the four bunked cabin I once sailed to Canada in - the Empress of Canada - would now seem a bit primitive in comparison, if roughly the same size. From reference 3, I learn that it must have been almost brand new when I travelled on it - but I don't remember it as being white or as having just the one funnel. I do remember a free cinema and a free swimming pool, this last a deep salt water pool well down inside the ship.

A short time-out, after which we strolled past the busy Westminster Arms and up Horse Guards Road, to be impressed by what look like semi-permanent structures on the parade ground, plus what looked like some fancy security box top right. Are even the Guards reduced to chasing foot-fall and bums-on-seats to make ends meet? At least we had the pleasant reminder of our days of glory, in the form of Old Admiralty, middle left, a grand building dating from the days when we had lots of battleships, but now long vacated by the admirals.

I associate now to having seen the last of them, HMS Vanguard, as a child, tied up at Portsmouth before going to the breakers' yard up north. This being, I think, before the breakers moved to Pakistan. While some years later, I became a acquainted at TB with a long-service sailor who had done time in her.

On into the Haymarket, where we came across this fine truck from Coyle Haulage delivering building materials to a site more or less opposite the theatre. Read all about them at reference 5 - where lots of impressive trucks are to be found.

The theatre seemed quite modest compared with that in nearby Drury Lane. On the other hand, we did get a proper set with walls, rooms and furniture. Clever use of the small rotating stage. A team wearing wigs and period (18th century) clothes. A proper bit of drama in fact, almost ensemble acting. Complete with someone playing a Bach cello suite from Box A in the interval, although I am not sure how many of the audience cottoned on. Boxes B, C and D appeared to be empty, although the stalls seemed pretty full.

A proper play, with real content. What is the proper way for an artist to behave when he meets a fighting soldier king, even one with artistic pretensions? Quite a big role for one of Bach's sons, more famous in his day than Bach himself, as I recall. The father's real fame came later. Casting good, including Cox's wife playing Bach's (second) wife, with none of the casting lapses that we had for both our visits to Drury Lane.

BH also turned up something that explained that Drury Lane was far too big for regular theatre, and was much better suited to spectacle. Which might explain why it was host to the 'Frozen' (of reference 6) for a long time.

Frederick the Great is to be found at reference 7, from where the extraordinary image above is taken: 'Attack of Prussian Infantry, Hohenfriedberg by Carl Röchling (1913)'. A picture which I thought I had seen before - before I found it in the programme that is - but this evening I have no idea where that might have been. 

A battle which Frederick won in 1745, thus confirming his taking Silesia (including what was then called Breslau) from the Austrians. Since the Second World War, part of Poland, that is to say some 200 years later. Who would want to be one of the chaps out front? Is it any wonder that Napoleon, a general who knew about artillery, did so well against them? At least at first.

On exit, back through St. James's Park, where we were able to admire some fine tulips.

And some fine gas pipes in the gas works at the top of Tothill Streeet. Made both the holes and the pipes to be seen at Epsom of recent weeks look pretty puny.

I then managed to get into a muddle about the placement of the small spires at the corners of the west towers of Westminster Abbey, managing to convince myself that they were left aligned rather than centre aligned. BH, more impressed by the threatening sky behind, simply said that I was being silly and it was all down to point of view. She was quite right, and the spires moved back to a central position as we moved to the right of the snap above.

And so to the Munich Cricket Club, first visited one lunchtime back in August last year, as noticed at reference 8. Where, having got into a muddle about the colour of my wine on my first visit, I got into another one on this second visit, thinking that the spätburgunder in the rosé part of the wine list would be red. But it was quite drinkable.

Rather splendid potato pancakes to start, topped with a fried egg: 'Kartoffelpuffer mit Käse Zwiebeln und Spiegelei'. Followed by a huge pork knuckle which, for the first time in many a year, I was unable to finish, although I did have a pretty good go. The crackling was absolutely spot on. But I did not try the brown goo to the left. 'Geschmorte Schweinshaxe auf Sauerkraut, Knödel und Soße'.

Made the 'slow roast pork belly' they make such a big deal of in our public houses these days look a bit naff.

Getting towards the end. Getting to taste the salt.

Proceedings enlivened by various office dos, one birthday and a small but properly dressed oompah band. Much loud music, singing, standing on benches and tables. All great fun. As older people we had been sat to one side, where we could enjoy the spectacle without feeling the need to join in too vigorously.

We took a night cap in a public house called the 'Sanctuary House' in Tothill Street, one of several public houses there which I am sure were not there when I worked across the road - albeit that being more than forty years ago now. In my case, an Eclipse rum from Mount Gay, a brand that I have had a soft spot for ever since I owned one of their umbrellas, presumably the result of a visit to one of the fine car boot sales at Hook Road Arena. With this particular rum named for the 1910 total solar eclipse, visible in Barbados. BH took an Earl Grey tea.

Heritage status of the house uncertain. The brown wood looked fairly new, but the ceiling did not.

It also offered an odd print of a foot parade in Horse Guards. Not really up to the (rather later) Röchling standard - but there is clearly nothing new about doing soldiers by CGI.

PS: in the margins, I was interested to read about planning problems in Spain at reference 9. At least we are not the only people to get into a tangle about this sort of thing. The problem in question being the near finished hotel snapped above. Been like that for twenty years. The locals want it finished and put into service: never mind the environment that other people have wrecked - they want the work.

The local rules say all buildings must be white. But maybe Greenpeace, when they took to the paint pots, had not bothered to read them.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/04/piano-102.html. The duplicate piano: doesn't happen very often.

Reference 2: https://greenandfortune.co.uk/.

Reference 3: http://www.liverpoolships.org/empress_of_canada_of_1961.html.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admiralty_buildings.

Reference 5: https://www.coylehaulage.uk/.

Reference 6: https://frozenthemusical.co.uk/.

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_the_Great.

Reference 8: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/08/munich-on-thames.html.

Reference 9: Spain’s huge ghost hotel — and why they can’t knock it down: The 20-storey El Algarrobico is a deserted monument to the struggle between environment and development - Henry Mance, Financial Times - 2025.

Form over substance

One result of attending part of a performance of an adaptation of ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’ put on by the people at reference 1, to be noticed properly in due course, was to get me thinking about précis. What was the point of a précis?

I have also been reading about oral ritual and performance at reference 2, mostly recently noticed towards the end of reference 3.

This led me back to my days as a civil servant when I was sometimes tasked with preparing documents called submissions, which were something like précis in that they attempted to summarise some matter, of importance on the day – and often went on to recommend action. Such recommendations often came in the form of a small number of options. 

The submission needed to be enough for the recipient, usually an important and busy person, to feel that he had got sufficient grasp of the issue to take the decision and that the subordinate, the writer of the submission, could be trusted to have done his work properly. Given that the recipient is important and busy, the submission needs to be short, the shorter the better, if not quite on the back of the traditional postcard. It will not, cannot, contain the whole story, just enough to be a reasonable basis for action. The people on implementation can worry about the details.

Proper wrapping helps this process along, makes it into something of a ritual performance which can be trusted. The ritual has been properly performed. This is suggested in the (entirely fictional) snap above, supposedly taken from the days before email and social chit-chat took over, when the careful and considered written word still ruled the roost.

This submission has been prepared by Cusens, from the unit designated IF2, possibly International Finance Division No.2. It is routed through the head of IF, one Fothergill, to the Chief Secretary of His Majesty’s Treasury, traditionally designated CST. Fothergill has ticked and initialled the submission to show that he has seen and approved it. He should also have dated his initials. Sometimes, he would have added a short manuscript note of his own. It was said that some particularly important people had their own particular colour of ink for this purpose.

It has been formally copied to various other people, listed in descending order of rank. It may be supposed that they have all seen a draft of the submission and that they are now happy with it – although, sometimes, mistakes are made and one or more of them may intervene at this late stage.

All this combines to give CST confidence that this submission has the backing of the organisation at large, and, importantly, does not just stand or fall on its own merits. On its substance.

There is also a house style to the body of the submission, another ritual which both aids consumption and promotes confidence. This will often include a privacy marking, something that some submission writers are a bit inclined to overdo, to puff the importance of the matter in hand and their own importance in it.

The submission should also be nicely crafted, to be a pleasure to read. This nice crafting may be more than is really needed for consumption, but it remains a useful part of the ritual. I associate to the ornament that a village carpenter of old might have applied to a cart; he has added a few flourishes of his own to the traditional design.

This can be seen in this picture (from one Serhii Datsinko) of an old farm cart turned up by Bing.

So, for example, there is a bit more flourish to the iron work above the left-hand spot than is strictly necessary and there is a bit more shaping to the spokes above the right-hand dot. The carpenter likes to show off a bit, just as the submission writer. It is all part of the expected performance.

Conclusions

Substance is not enough. It needs to be supported by form. Or perhaps in management consultant speak, by process.

A conclusion which, as it happens, takes me back to the observations about truth as a process, rather than something which just exists somehow or other, at reference 3.

From where I associate to the way that a mathematical theorem, a truth of sorts, is the result of the well-defined – but also creative – process of proof.

PS 1: rather irritatingly, Microsoft insists on hyphenating phrases like ‘left-hand’. An insistence which is sometimes helpful, if often irritating. But I have not yet learned how to turn it off in a suitably selective way.

PS 2: another gem from Opie & Opie of reference 4. You need to work at it a bit to get the scansion of the last line to work.

References

Reference 1: https://www.conn-artists.co.uk/. 

Reference 2: The Muse Learns to Write: Reflections on Orality and Literacy from Antiquity to the Present – Eric A Havelock – 1986.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/04/trolley-814.html. 

Reference 4: The Oxford dictionary of nursery rhymes – Opie, Opie – 1952.

Trolleys 816 and 817

After a copious lunch yesterday, a stroll into town. My first capture was an M&S food hall trolley, outside the station.

In perfectly good working order, but looking a bit tired in the lower regions. So clearly not immune to pitting and rust, so presumably some kind of plated steel. Returned to a fairly full stack at the Ashley Centre entrance.

My second was from the car park behind the Rio Grill (now serving fish and chips again). A trolley in much better condition. By the time I got back to M&S, the stack had much thinned out, and my first trolley had gone, presumably to a customer than retired behind the shed (in the way of elderly locos in the Thomas the Tank Engine stories. Presumably not as popular now as they once were).

Back via Waterloo Road, where I noticed at least three people cleaning up the roof garden in the middle of the snap above. A roof garden that I have noticed before but will I be able to find it now? A roof garden on which I have yet to see residents lounging about, lazily sipping at cold drinks.

Three attempts on psmv5 and one on psmv4 have now failed. Once again, maybe if I take a break a more cunning search term will come to me.

PS 1: 19:30: I get there in the end. Too full of impromptu noodles to do anything more serious, I tried various search keys, with 'waterloo flat' coming up with reference 2. Bit like doing testing on a Friday afternoon. I think this post had come up before, with my skipping over it on the grounds that it was far too recent, but this time I paused long enough to see that it was what I was looking for. A few months ago rather than a few years. And the 'waterloo' in the search key was a reference to Waterloo Road rather than Waterloo Station. But no matter, it worked.

PS 2: still not sure about the details of blog search, but I think it is something close to whole word. Roughly speaking, the word in the key has to be in post, delimited by spaces or some other suitable special characters, for that post to be a hit. While the Edge 'find on page' feature does find text string, without regard to delimiters: 'elim' would find delimiter.

PS 3: skjhfduiyfuisdhjrebwrj elephant ostriches whales egg-plant trying. A quick test suggests that to find this post with blog search 'ostrich' and 'whale' need to be pluralised. Singular will not do. With the nonsense word serving to restrict the search results to at most this one post. And 'try' is not an acceptable substitute for the present participle. On the other hand, 'egg' without plant will do; the hyphen is an acceptable delimiter. Bit of thought needed at this point on how one might mount a proper test.

PS 4: on the search key 'skjhfduiyfuisdhjrebwrj elephant', Bing give me stuff about elephants. So although Edge knows about the nonsense word, it has not made that information available to Bing - although I think I have detected that sort of pass-through in the past. Google more or declines to play.

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/04/trolley-815.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/01/weaver-two.html.

Group search key: trolleysk.

Trolley 815

Having brought brown bread batch No.747 to a successful conclusion, a turn around town, to capture this trolley from the M&S food hall in Station Approach.

Followed by a spot of shopping from both Waitrose and M&S. From the former, a red cabbage, probably from England and two large pomegranates from Peru. From the latter, some kale from Spain. Greens being reduced to baby greens, which I thought might be a bit mushy. This despite the Tesco supplier at reference 2 claiming present availability from Lincolnshire.

Followed by a short visit to Wetherspoon's for a pint of Doombar on the terrace. I thought something a bit stronger than Greene King IPA was in order, since I was only allowed the one. Significantly more expensive.

On entrance, I noticed a planning notice. It seems that Wetherspoon's, presumably as part of the recent refurbishment, forgot to ask permission to replace some listed windows. Asking permission appears to involve submitting no less than thirteen documents, from which I learn that 5 20th century replacement but rotten windows have been replaced with 5 new but otherwise identical windows.

What proportion of the total cost is accounted for by this essentially null planning process?

The architects are to be found at reference 3 and look to specialise in hospitality: 'As leading venue design specialists, we understand your business’ needs and respond with well thought out proposals and projects. Our well-qualified and extremely experienced professional team will always share new ideas where they make sense for your business'. I guess that Wetherspoon's is now big enough to run to a specialist - but I do wonder when in their forty year trajectory they graduated to same. Perhaps they have several such outfits on their books?

On the busy terrace, the usual Wetherspoon's crowd, enlivened on this occasion enlivened by what appeared to be a funeral party, possibly involving travelling people, complete with matriarch. Both ladies and gents were dressed in smart black, including a fair amount of jewellery, particularly on the hands.

The replacement tree just below the terrace seemed well enough, but was clearly a lot less vigorous than some of the others. There seem to be three varieties of tree at this end of the market place, with this one being the least vigorous. See, for example, reference 4 from near four years ago.

The scene in the Maquis opposite, equally busy, was more mixed parties of young people, presumably getting cranked up for the evening's entertainments.

While, walking back over the hill, my fruit and vegetables seemed quite heavy. But then, if I had brought my own trolley, I would not have been capturing someone else's.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/04/trolley-814.html.

Reference 2: https://thclements.co.uk/our-products/spring-greens.

Reference 3: https://dv-architects.co.uk/.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/09/trolley-431.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/04/trolley-812.html. They may have been putting the squeeze on smoking, as remarked on in reference 4 above, but it can be seen here that large ash trays are all present and correct today.

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